Need a good read? Read about Aziah, the angel frozen in time

In an attempt to revive the short stories forums, I will post the beginning of one of my novels. I am not very far in this particular story, but I'd love feedback and advise nonetheless, plus I figure many of us ATS'ers are starved of literary entertainment when we're on the site. We haven't been writing much lately. Shame on us.

But anywho, here goes something.

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Chapter 1

The Man In The Ice

Science couldn’t explain the man in the ice.
It wasn’t the first time they’d found a relic from the past, but this was very different from the frozen corpses that would occasionally be discovered by accident, those that had decayed, those that actually looked—as they were supposed to—like a cadaver. This wasn’t a tiny, shrunken body with the bones clearly visible and the eye sockets empty. It wasn’t small or fragile like it should have been. In fact, it didn’t seem to have decomposed at all.
The man had a few loose chunks of his ancient clothing still remaining on his mostly exposed body. The age of the clothes, as well as how deep he’d been buried in ice, was a clear indication of how old the body was, but looking at it now, it simply didn’t seem possible. This corpse had been trapped in ice for hundreds of years, but it didn’t appear to be any older than the autopsy surgeons who were examining it now. The skin was intact and unaged, as well as the hair, the nails, and even the faint hint of five o’ clock shadow along the wide jawline. The body was still completely frozen, and it lay in a large metal container that kept it cold, but now that the container had been opened and now that the surgeons had been working on it for almost an hour, the ice was beginning to liquefy. They’d have to finish quickly so that they could refreeze the corpse soon, lest it receive any unintended damage from the thawing process.
The youngest of the three surgeons, a brunet woman with her long hair tied back and held under the back of her shirt’s collar, leaned over the frozen man, her mouth hanging slightly agape from behind her surgical mask. All of them worked with a slight fascination gnawing at the back of their minds.
It was unthinkable that they were examining a body that was hundreds—possibly thousands—of years old, and it looked like someone who had died only yesterday.
The skin above the stomach lay slightly open after the woman had gently slid a scalpel across it, revealing the organs inside, all of them perfectly jam-packed and preserved. This was completely impossible, but here it was, right before their very eyes.
The woman cut a little deeper. They planned to open the stomach in order figure out what the frozen man had eaten, if anything, before his death. If they uncovered more information about this mysterious man’s diet, it might help them to determine when and where he had lived when he was alive.
On the inside of the man’s body, everything was becoming slightly squishier, more moveable, easier to damage. Somehow, the man’s blood managed to stain the woman’s fingertips, discoloring her light blue rubber gloves with little blotches of crimson.
Every time the scalpel would cut deeper into the skin, the body tremored. The brunet woman was trying very hard not to notice; it was impossible for a corpse to have a physical reaction to an injury. She had to be imagining it.
But then, the other two surgeons noticed it as well.
As if reading one another’s thoughts, they all exchanged glances before the brunet woman grasped the open area and cautiously pulled the two segments of skin apart. If the corpse was reacting to pain, then certainly it would react to this.
Contrary to what they’d expected, it worked.
The thin layer of ice on the skin crackled, and what little of it remained fell from the body in flakes.
There was a gasp—not from any of the surgeons, but from the corpse.
Suddenly, they weren’t working on a body anymore. This wasn’t simply a deceased relic, no, it was a person. A living, breathing man, attempting to sit upright and wincing in pain due to his stomach being cut open.
The surgeons all scrambled backwards, watching the man with their backs against the wall.
He was of average size, not muscular, but toned, and his naked body carried many scars, the newest one still bleeding onto his lap. He had a face that somehow looked both masculine and childlike, his short black hairs sticking messily upright, his cheeks and sideburns dripping with defrosted water, and his eyes wide and shining a very curious blue.
He made an expression as if he’d never seen another human being before in his life. His eyes shifted between the three surgeons, then over to the window, which had thick blinds hanging over the glass in order to block out the sunlight. He was able to see hints of the light bleeding in through the cracks.
“What’s going on? What’s going on?!”
“I don’t know!”
Two of the surgeons were arguing back and forth in hissing whispers. The language sank into the once frozen man’s head like water to a sponge; he’d never heard English before now. But with every word the surgeons frantically uttered to one another, he began to understand the language more and more.
“Your… tongue.” He breathed hoarsely. “Your tongue is com… complicated.”
It would likely take him a while to get the hang of using the new language in his brain. That was the least of his worries, though.
How did he end up here? And what was this place? Why was he being prodded at by humans? And why did he, himself, feel a very unfamiliar pain in his gut that only a flesh-and-blood human should have been able to feel?
He turned his hand, examining first the back of it, then the palm.
It was flesh and blood—a piece of his body, of a collection of bones, muscles, and organs inside of a skinvelope. And oh, such endless feelings this body harbored. It was bizarre.
He extended one of his legs over the edge of the table, realizing that his joints were still stiff from being in their frozen state for so long, but he forced them to move properly and reached his feet, leaning on the table and clutching his bleeding stomach.
His gaze traded between the surgeons many times before he finally focused his full attention onto the one nearest him, the brunet woman.
Her glistening brown eyes bore into the living corpse’s cerulean ones.
The gateways to her soul stood open with wonder, and he was able to see into her mind. He felt her thoughts, her routines, her beliefs, her thought patterns, the processes of decision making she’d taught herself—and there were many problems with carefully constructed solutions inside her head, problems involving numbers, currency, the paying of bills…. whatever that meant. The other problems in the woman’s mind were accompanied by images, pictures of clothing rolling around inside of a large square machine, pictures of large metal contraptions filling the concrete streets each morning on her way to work, pictures of her aged father and sick mother, both now passed, and pictures of her boss, a wrinkly man with a stern look on his face, someone who undoubtedly made her anxious whenever she’d see him.
Something was very wrong.
The depths of this woman’s mind didn’t look right at all.



[Continued]

This ordinary woman had a sort of complexity to her that wasn’t meant to be held by humans; she carried numerous burdens that were too many for one brain to handle. Why hadn’t she prayed to have the burdens lifted from her? Why hadn’t God or one of the angels freed her mind of all this clutter?
“No, that’s…” He began to understand the answer to his unspoken questions.
He felt so very heavy now, his soul one with the body he now inhabited. And, to top it off, everything around him felt wrong as well; the link was gone. He couldn’t sense the angels anymore, couldn’t hear their calls in the air, couldn’t reach out to any of them.
There was only one thing that could sever the connection to the angels.
It was a terrible thing… a monumental, catastrophic thing…
“They’re gone.” He uttered in astonishment. “They’re… gone. I can’t feel them. They’re all gone forever. They don’t… they don’t…”
He couldn’t feel the presence of The Lord, that infinite feeling, that imminent glory that would sweep over men and angels alike, striking everyone with its almighty power and purity. No, that was completely gone from the world. Now, there was nothing but a small room containing a few ordinary humans, none of whom had any faith.
But now, there was nothing for them to have faith in.
How could the world around him become so very vacant? Were all his brothers truly gone? Was he the only one to have survived?
There were no omniscient presences in the world now.
He was unsure if he could even call himself holy or omniscient. His energy surged, his palms hot as he enclosed his fists and his stomach searing as it attempted to heal itself, but apart from him—apart from the fiery, inhuman soul trapped at the core of this body—there was no angelic energy left in the entire universe.
Feeling as though he might have misread everything, he placed his hands on the woman’s cheeks, pressing his forehead against hers and forcing his way into her mind even further. The convoluted, stress induced thoughts remained ever prominent in the surgeon’s head. He hadn’t made a mistake. There was no God, and this human, as well as presumably every human in the world, was dealing with life’s problems on her own, without a God, without guidance from any guardian angels.
“H-h-how are you…” The woman sputtered.
“I…” The man said. “I think I… I must have latched onto a human when I was close to death. It was a last resort, a way to save myself, before I… yes… I had no choice. There was a war. There was a war…”
The memories rushed back to him a little too quickly.
“There was a war, between the angels and the demons… and God was losing. He was losing because his power had weakened, yes, I remember… he became weak when the people lost faith in him. And so, the demons raged over the earth… the angels were dying… and I… I was the last one… I am the last one…”
The surgeon woman was petrified, and she didn’t dare move. The other two surgeons watched from yards away, and the man didn’t remove his hands from her face. He continued gazing into her with rapt attentiveness, then, his eyes drifted over her body, her surgical outfit, her white jacket, and the little nametag on the left side of her chest, which read; Aziah
“I… oh.” He mumbled. “I’m supposed to be… wearing clothes.”
Only just realizing that he was naked, the man wandered out of the room, his hand clamping over his injured stomach once again. He entered the hallway, leaving a tiny trail of blood on the otherwise spotless floor as he did. The first closet was a couple of rooms down. He opened it, located a pile of folded surgical gowns on one of the middle shelves, and began dressing himself.
He managed to slide his legs into a pair of thin, green pants by the time the woman had stepped into the hallway, watching him curiously.
Once he was fully dressed in his light green scrubs, the front of the shirt had already started darkening from where the blood was escaping his open stomach. He grasped it again, gritting his teeth and giving the surgeon woman another long stare.
“I may borrow your name. I can’t remember mine.” He told her. “Is that okay?”
The woman nodded.
“Aziah.” He deemed himself. “I… I quite like it.”
The angel man attempted a smile before turning and walking slowly towards the next room. This room was empty, with no surgeons, archeologists, or corpses inside. The only thing occupying this room was an open window.
Just what he wanted.
Aziah slid the window open. It was definitely large enough for him to fit through, but after he looked down, he realized he’d have a huge fall if he jumped.
So, he climbed into the window and attempted to channel his power, ignoring the pain in his abdomen.
He made the leap.
As he descended, he noticed he was falling much faster than he wanted to. Perhaps it was the weight of a human body, or that his power simply wasn’t functioning properly.
Instead of hitting the pavement of the street down below, Aziah landed in a huge metal box filled with plastic bags of garbage. The dumpster lids had been left open, thankfully. He lay awkwardly in between the endless, smelly bags, his body lost amongst them and his limbs sprawled in every direction. The landing didn’t hurt him, but his stomach was positively screaming in pain now.
It took him a moment to dig his way out of the garbage bags, and the horrid scent nearly gagged him. He pulled himself out of the dumpster and flipped over the edge, landing harshly on the sidewalk beside the road.
“Ngh…”
Aziah balled his hand into a fist, glimpsing up when he heard the low rumbling of a vehicle nearby. A silver car rolled by him, and the driver gave him a strange look in passing. It was followed by a green minivan, then a small pickup truck. He gave each of the vehicles a studying glare as they went by.
The machines were completely new to him. He never imagined that a human could travel by sitting comfortably inside of a huge metal contraption.
Cars continued to pass, and Aziah’s attention shifted to the other streets, all full of vehicles, then to the buildings a little ways north; it was a city, and it shone with the intensity of a thousand stars under the sunlight. Humans built those enormous buildings? Was that even possible?
Aziah stood, the blood from his wound seeping through his scrubs and oozing between his fingers.
This wasn’t the world he knew.
There were no Gods or angels, or even demons.
There were only humans.
But this advancement, this progress, this ridiculous world before him—how could it have happened when the humans had been left without guidance for so long? These beautiful vehicles, those towering buildings. Were they truly capable of creating such amazing things by themselves? Had the times really changed that much? How long had he been gone?
“Hey!”
Someone hollered.
Aziah glimpsed around until spotting a middle aged man leaning out of a truck, his arm folded on the window’s edge and his eyes narrowing at the angel man. The truck driver had stopped in the middle of the road, halting traffic and causing a few of the vehicles behind him to blow their horns out of irritation.
“Hey, buddy. You alright?” The truck driver yelled, motioning towards Aziah. “You’re bleeding.”
Aziah wandered over to the truck without bothering to look both ways before crossing the street.
“I’m lost.” Aziah said in a raspy voice, his wound stinging terribly. “Where am I?”

“You’re just outside of Dallas, friend. Been out drinkin’ haven’t’cha?” The driver replied. “No worries, I’ve been there before. Where’re you headed?”
“I don’t know.” Aziah looked around again. “I need to see the rest of the world.”
“The rest of the world? You sure you can do that on foot? I think you might need to go see a doctor first.” The driver told him. “What happened there? Get in a knife fight, or something?”
Aziah lifted his shirt and examined his stomach. The driver frowned when he caught sight of the open surgical wound. It was incredibly deep.
“Those people opened me.” Aziah said. “They… I don’t know why, but they…”
The red sports car behind the truck howled as its driver laid his palm against the horn.
“Move it, jackass!” The driver of the sports car screamed out his window, but the truck driver paid him no mind.
“Listen, bud. You need a ride to a hospital?” The truck driver offered. “I can take you.”
“No, thank you, I…” Aziah trailed off. He walked around the truck, crossed the street, and gazed into the open desert.
After a moment, the truck drove away, allowing traffic to move freely again. Aziah didn’t notice. The desert had plenty of open space. There was a time, centuries ago, when he was capable of running faster than the speed of light. His human body probably wouldn’t be able to keep up with his abilities, but he needed to try. He simply couldn’t accept being powerless.
“Where could I go?” He uttered. “Where should I go?”
It didn’t matter where he went, he just wanted to go. Aziah longed to see more of the world, to understand his predicament to the fullest.
I want to move. I want to see it. I want to see everything.
Aziah’s hands became hot once more, and his legs pulsated as the energy within him steadily grew.
I want to move. I want to go!
And like a bullet, Aziah was off. He flew through the desert at a staggering pace, and as the wind sliced against his face and threw his hair back, he wasn’t sure if he was using his legs to move or not. He propelled through the air and soared across the ground, a gust of sandy clouds left behind in his wake and a broad grin plastered on his face as he gained speed.
Keep going, keep going!
He could almost feel his body splitting apart. That was a clear sign; he needed to slow down, even though he didn’t want to.
Something came into view.
A building? A rock?
He couldn’t be sure what it was. It was approaching far too quickly—
Wham.
Aziah crashed into the wooden wall of the barn, pummeling through it with the velocity of a cannonball. The wood shattered and he rocketed inside, fumbling to a stop in the stacks of hay. He lay motionless for a few long seconds, his head resting in the hay, the yellow needles poking at his face and his stomach pouring blood. The rapid running had opened his wound even more, and for some reason, it wasn’t healing.
He once had the ability to heal human injuries, so why wasn’t his human body healing like he wanted it to? Even now, as he focused most of his energy into his stomach in an attempt to repair the damaged cells and open skin?
It felt as though someone had lit his belly on fire. No matter how much of his power he siphoned into the injury, it simply wouldn’t heal.
“Something is…” Aziah hunched over in the pile of hay, trying to stare into his wound. “Something is in there that doesn’t belong… something…”
He was right. When he’d sprung to life on top of that table, the surgeon woman had accidently dropped her scalpel into Aziah’s stomach, and it was still inside of him somewhere, cutting into his organs and preventing him from healing himself.
Just when he was about to stick his fingers into his open injury, a glint of movement caught his attention. It was across the barn, near the gigantic red doors that stood open and allowed the sunlight to illuminate half of the old barn’s interior. Weaving between the stacks of hay was a human, a small one, a child. The little girl looked to be about five years old, her skin as pale as the moon, her short, wavy hair shining a bright ginger, and her eyes a piercing green. She wore a casual outfit, and it was stained all over with mud; it was a dirty white tank top and a pair of jean overhauls. The child had been playing outside, until she heard the booming crash that had occurred in the barn due to Aziah’s untimely arrival.
The girl placed her small hands on one of the haystacks, hiding behind it and watching Aziah wonderingly. Aziah returned her stare, his breaths becoming pants and gasps. His energy was abandoning him, and fast. This bleeding needed to stop, or…
“Take it…” Aziah breathed, waving for her to approach. “Please, come here, take it out…”
The girl hesitated for a moment before doing as he asked. She stepped towards the fallen angel, kneeling beside him and gaping at the blood that covered his lap.
“Take it.” He pointed to his stomach. “Take out the metal blade, please…”
Gulping, the girl reached forward, her short fingers cautiously slipping into the bloody opening. Aziah released a groan as she felt around inside of him, but he nodded for her to keep going. After a moment, the girl finally wrapped her fingers around the end of the scalpel. She carefully pulled it out of him, her arm now halfway coated in his blood, though she didn’t seem to care.
Aziah wasted no time. He focused his energy into his injury yet again, and this time, he was able to feel the loose bits of skin slowly stringing back together. The organs became uncomfortably hot as they healed, as did the skin, though Aziah couldn’t care less. Rapidly healing a human body was a painful experience, and it took quite a lot of energy out of him to perform such a task, but it was necessary, especially now. If he were to die in this body, he would be gone forever. He couldn’t latch onto another person, and he was almost certain that he’d never be able to take the full form of an angel again. Never before had an angel fused with a human. There was no way to separate himself from the man he had melded with. He was a human angel now, the first one ever to exist, and he’d remain this way forever.
“Thank you…” He exhaled, letting his head plop backwards as he stared up at the roof of the barn.
The little girl’s eyes were fixated on Aziah’s stomach. The blood was still smeared all over his scrubs and his skin, but the deep surgical wound had disappeared completely without even leaving behind a scar.
“What are you?” The girl asked in a timid, innocent voice.
“I’m an angel.” Aziah replied with a faint smile.


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And this is all I have so far. Pleas elet me know if you wanna see more, or if you'd like me to post segments of my other stories in progress. FYI, I am on the sixth chapter of Doomsday by Design, those of you who are interested. You know who you are.

Peace!

Thanks for sharing. Good read so far , but just wondering why the body would be so perfectly preserved but the ancient clothing rotton. I'm guessing your a god believer, not my forte but I like to read about other peoples gods and goddesses and beliefs. Not sure I can say anything else except I like it and would read more if you post more. It would make a nice change from Obama bashing, american gun freaks, and isis threads.

Do you publish your stories. Wish I had the patience to write.

Keep up the good work.

Wonderful story! I was at the edge of my seat! Yes, please write more!

Thanks guys

Honestly, I'm more agnostic than anything. And I may be one of those American gun-loving nutjobs, but you won't catch me bashing Obama or spreading any anti-Muslim crap. I'm pretty sick of hearing it too. It's tiring, and both the left and the right are wearing my mind thin.

Thank God for writing. Calms the mind.

Yep, I publish my stuff. Most of it is incomplete, what of it isn't a novelette or a short story, so I thought I'd share some "work in progress" stuff. It'd be nice to get a little feedback while I siphon all my heart and soul into something.

I really appreciate the comments. Will be posting more as soon as I have more.

a reply to: Cloudbuster

Good read so far , but just wondering why the body would be so perfectly preserved but the ancient clothing rotton.

He's an angel, and he has a lot of angel abilities that enable him to do things that regular people can't do, like run a thousand miles an hour, heal a lethal wound, or survive being frozen for hundreds of years.

a reply to: XxNightAngelusxX

I did really enjoy him as a character. I would love to read more. Reminds me of reading a book of short stories bythe late and great Ray Bradbury.

My flag and star mean I do indeed ish to see more. But here is a post just in case you don't get the hint.
Now I'll go and pull up Doom by Design to read later when I have time. Gotta sleep sometime. Or else I would read it now, you see. Thank you.